The the Hilton Honors Credit Card

Another way to rack up points is with a Hilton Credit Card. I have an American Express that I use while traveling. You can charge food, rooms, transportation and anything you desire at any time and watch your points rack up. This is part of the great Hilton deal in that points are always valuable. You never have to work too hard to earn points for a moving target. I use mine frequently to build up toward free stays.

What I’ve learned to do is use my AmEx card and turn in the receipt to my wife who writes a check. I don’t want to take in new debt to get these points. However, the rewards are worth using the card for daily expenses and paying them off immediately.

Five steps to increasing your points and stays

Get a Hilton Honors credit card and build points through purchases. You can get Visa or American Express or both. Hilton Honors gives generously giving up to 10 points for each dollar spend depending on product.

1. Check into a different Hilton Hotel each night. Moving up in status is quicker with stays. The Diamond status starts with 26 stays, not nights. For example, when I travel for a week, I stay in four different hotels. Sometimes they are quite close to each other. One night in a Hilton, the next in a Double Tree, next a Homewood Inn and Suites and etc. That comes out to four stays. If I just spend the week in one hotel, it only counts as one stay.
2. Look for values and specials. Sometimes Hilton offers double  points for stays at selected hotels. If your schedule is flexible, take up their offer.
3. Set your Hilton Honors profile to earn points. You can select to receive points instead of breakfast. Some hotels don’t offer free breakfast automatically, so they will offer points instead of the meal. Go through your profile and determine what you can exchange for points.
4. If you have a good chance of making Diamond status, don’t cash in your points. If you redeem points for a free stay, you don’t get credit for the stay. You can save a few hundred bucks, but wait until you reach diamond status. Then, you can redeem points and still get credit for the stay.
5. Use Airline miles and other awards programs to feed your Hilton points.

That's it, five ways to get the most out of Hilton Honors point opportunities. Join us for more information later.

Why Hiltonhop

Hilton Honors allow you to build up points while travelling. Earn enough points, you get free hotel stays. I’m currently working on hotel stays to move from Gold to Diamond status. It eluded me last year, but this year I will achieve it.

This requires a lot of work.  The quickest way to earn the Diamond status is to change hotels every night. This is tiring and for a five night working engagement, I change hotels four times. This also requires packing the luggage in such a way as to be able to pull out a new set of clothing for work and entertainment each day. This also requires packing in such a way as to prevent clothing from wrinkling.

I usually travel with a small duffel back or suitcase. My wife graciously taught me how to fold my cloths into crisp little bundles that maintained their shape through the duration of travel. My shirts, pants, ties, shorts, shoes, workout and exercise clothing, and etc all have a place.

Also, when I get a set of clothing, I carefully unpack and repack everything just to get the clothing out. It is a most inspiring ceremony the first few times, but soon, it becomes routing. The key is to make sure the suitcase is packed every night before the morning checkout. You never know when you might oversleep.

To prevent oversleeping, set all alarms as soon as you get into the hotel room. All Hilton hotels have alarm clocks, wakeup call service and you should also use watch or telephone wakeup alarms if available. Sometimes it’s hard enough to sleep on the road. If you do finally fall asleep, you want to be able to wake up and get moving in a timely manner.

During the week of 1-5 August I stayed in four great Hilton Hotels in the Crystal City, Arlington, Washington, DC area. 

The first night, I stayed at the Hilton Crystal City at National Airport, 2399 Jefferson Davis highway, Arlington, VA 22202, 703 418-6800. This hotel offered a small swimming pool, a fitness center and had an office space for public use. As a gold member, I received free internet and complimentary breakfast. The room had  a large bed, desk and couch. I was able to work for a few hours in relative peace and quiet.

That night I met friends to eat at the

The second night brought me to Double Tree Hotel 300 Army Drive, Arlington, VA 22202, 703 416 4126

The third night I stayed at Embassy Suites 1300 Jefferson Davis Highway, Arlington, VA 22202 703 979-9799

The last night I stayed at Hilton Arlington 590 North Stafford Street, Arlington, VA 22203 703 528-6000

We ate lunch at the Hamburger Hamlet in the Crystal City shopping complex. That’s the key here, where I live everyone drives to work. In this metropolis, everyone commutes and spends of good deal of time walking from public transportation areas to their places of work or pleasure. So, the choice is walk in the open air during good weather or navigate the underground walking routes packed with shopping and food vendors.

Hamburger Hamlet was a delicious restaurant complete with a professional staff and competitive menu. True to it’s name, Hamburger Hamlet did have gourmet and regular burgers. However, it offers other wonderful meals. I had the Stella; a three piece meal. It comes with a sandwich of choice, salad and soup of the day. I had the open face veggie sandwich with tomato, olive, onion, reduced vinaigrette on a sourdough bread face. The soup was a great chicken gumbo.

We ate at Union Jacks in the mall by the Bolston Exit in Arlington. My meal was a Grilled Salmon with rice and seasonal vegetables. This meal was tender, fresh and just a perfect way to end a long day. The bar featured about 15 European (mostly British) beers on tab and twice as many in bottles and many non-alcoholic choices. The DJ took requests and kept the dinner alive with alternative hits from the 80’s, 90’s and early 2,000s. Shortly before my bedtime, they moved tables and built a dance floor.